Survey Says Facebook Least Trusted Tech Firm

2018 has been a tumultuous year for Facebook. With concerns embracing mostly data security and personal information concerns, the social media giant has been facing multiple criticism. According to Times Of India, a new survey has revealed that the platform is the least trusted tech firm.

In a reflection of what a series of data leaks and scandals has done to damage the reputation of Facebook, a new survey has found that the world’s largest social network leads the list of companies that people trust the least.

According to a survey of 1,000 people conducted earlier this month by research company Toluna, 40 percent of respondents said they trusted Facebook the least with their personal information.

In terms of lack of trust among its users, Facebook leads other technology companies by a huge margin, according to the survey. It is followed by Twitter and Amazon which tied for the second position with lack of trust from eight per cent of the respondents for each of the companies.

Following Twitter and Amazon are Uber and Google. While seven per cent of the respondents said they did not trust Uber with their personal data, six per cent said the same of Google.

Microsoft and Apple fared comparatively well. While four percent of the respondents expressed lack of trust in Apple, just two per cent of the total respondents said they did not trust Microsoft with their personal information.

Netflix and Tesla tied for the position of the most trusted companies in the list, with one per cent of the respondents showing lack of trust in each of these two companies.

There is no doubt why Facebook has done badly. Facebook has enabled the harvesting of personal data for election interference and we have seen a seemingly unending series of revelations.

Among the most troubling cases was the revelation in March that political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica swept up personal information of millions of Facebook users for the purpose of manipulating national elections. We also saw its role in fomenting violence in Myanmar and a series of major data breaches.

Then Google attracted concern about its continuous surveillance of users it was tracking people’s movements whether they like it or not. Uber and Tesla were investigated for fatal self-driving car crashes in March. The list is endless.

In related news, Facebook reportedly got Indian patent for a system that could help provide error-free translation. Country’s patent office has granted an Indian patent to Mark Zuckerberg-led Facebook for an invention relating to a system that enables the social media giant provide quality and error-free translation of texts for its members.

Unlike the conventional process of translation, the present invention, according to the patent documents filed by Facebook, discloses a system for selecting a translated text phrase from a set of translations for a text phrase in a social media network. At first, the system identifies users who could perform the translation for the text phrase based on profile information. The translation of the text phrase is performed by users or members identified in the social network.

The system receives the translated text from the members of the social media network. Once the translations are received, the system employs a process to select an optimised translated text among translations. To perform this, the system uses the votes from the users on the translations and determines quality scores for the translations.

The system assigns weights, or credibility coefficients, to the votes for determining quality scores. A weight of a vote may be based on quality scores for translations submitted by the voter. The system finally selects a translation, based on quality scores for available translations and the selected translation is then presented to the member.

Luis Aureliano is a business writer and financial analyst. With over 15 years of experience in global finance and an MBA in economics and management, Luis’s areas of expertise include business, marketing, communications, personal finance, macro economics, stocks and emerging markets.

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